Category: Suzette Jordan

Life’s injustices must surely be braved and corrected. But you will do well first to accept any situation before you work towards changing it.The key message from Suzette Katrina Jordan’s eventful and tumultuous Life – that sadly, abruptly, ended yesterday, owing to meningoencephalitis, in a Kolkata hospital – was this.

Suzette JordanPicture Courtesy: India Today

Suzette was a single mother of two girls. She was warm, compassionate and believed deeply in herself and in the cause of empowering women – something that she championed till her very end. She survived a gang rape on Park Street in Kolkata in February 2012. But, importantly, instead of hiding being the “Park Street Rape Survivor” tag, she came out in 2013 and revealed her identity on national television. It is sad and ironical therefore that her death has been reported across most sections of media as “Part Street Rape Survivor Dies”. Personally, I feel, a fitting tribute to her fight, for dignity and justice, would have been to say that “Suzette Jordan passes away, but the fight she started will go on”. Even so, it is not surprising that the media, that thrives on ‘keywords’ to grab eyeballs, used the ‘rape survivor’ tag to announce Suzette’s demise.

I reached out to Suzette in July 2014 inviting her to receive the first copy of my Book – ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content while living without money’(Westland, August 2014) – when we launched it in Kolkata. I am not sure I had her correct email id and so I wouldn’t know if she ever got my invitation. But I learned from someone she worked with that Suzette had become very reclusive. This person, who headed an NGO for women in Kolkata, told me that Suzette had been numbed by the mud-slinging and witch-hunting that the West Bengal administration had launched against her: “Suzette is shocked no doubt with the insensitivity of the Chief Minister and her entire cabinet. But she is in no way cowed down. She accepts her current reality, she realizes that the odds are stacked against her, but she is determined to plow on.” For the record, Mamata Banerjee had termed Suzette’s charge of rape a ‘sajano ghotona’ (fabricated event) and her cabinet colleague, a lady, had called it a ‘sex deal gone awry’. In response to these charges, Suzette told NDTV’s Monideepa Banerjee: “People make mistakes, you know,” she said. “She made a mistake. I don’t hold it against her.” Yesterday, Monideepa recounted this further on her blog: “Over the last three years, almost to the day, I met Suzette many times, at her home, at my office. She was indomitable, determined to fight for justice though the legal process dragged. The main accused is still absconding. She told me how in court, the three accused and their parents abused her, cajoled her to drop the case. But she fought on. Without resources. Three years, no job. Her mother lived with her, besides her two daughters. Her mother’s brother in Australia sent her money. Her daughters’ school fees were waived. She was celebrated across the country, speaker here, speaker there. But no end to hard times.”

And so, with her passing, in a way, the physical version of Suzette Katrina Jordan’s fight for justice has ended. But the spirit of her struggle, the message of courage and indomitable will that she spread in the three years since that barbaric attack on her, and the inspirational metaphor called Suzette Jordan will live on. She was the one that told the Indian media to stop using the word ‘victim’ for those affected by rape; she then modified it to ‘survivor’ and then daringly came forth and declared: “I am sick and tired of being called the Park Street rape survivor. I am Suzette Jordan.”Through her willingness to accept her Life for what it was she taught us the value in and power of acceptance. Through her activism for the cause she led, she also taught us that acceptance is not a passive state. It does not equal inaction. By being accepting of a situation, you conserve valuable energy which you would have otherwise expended in resisting that situation. When you accept your Life for what it is, you can channelize your energy intelligently to focus on doing what’s required of you to change the situation or to fight an injustice done to you or both!

Life’s situations are like an erroneously inflated BSNL bill. You can cry foul, you can rant, but BSNL will begin a dialogue and process to redress your complaint only when you first pay up their claim. So it is with Life. You have to first accept what is. Only then can you look to work on changing it!

When people, circumstances, society – when everything turns against you, don’t think Life’s conspiring against you too. What you see as a conspiracy is actually Life’s inscrutable design at play – to make you wake up and claim a new Life that’s waiting for you!

Suzette Jordan: Zest for LifePic Courtesy: Shriya Mohan, Grist Media

Ask Suzette Jordan, 38, known world-over as the hapless “Park Street Rape Victim” from Kolkata. And she will tell you how much her world has changed ever since those horrific midnight hours of February 5, 2012. That night she was offered a lift by someone she had met at the Tantra nightclub at Park Hotel. She was then assaulted, raped and thrown out of a moving car. When, a few days later, she summoned the strength and courage to report the crime, the police jeered at her. She was provided no support by the government machinery – what with her own state’s Chief Minister, ironically a lady, claiming the entire episode was ‘cooked up’. Another lady Member of Parliament, representing West Bengal’s ruling party, said that since Jordan was divorced and a mother of two teenage daughters, the episode was probably the fallout of a ‘commercial deal going awry between a professional and her client’. Abused, ridiculed, depressed, cashless and alone (although her father, sister and extended family did throw a ring of protection and emotional support around her), Jordan could have given up. But she did not. She says she knew that while she had been physically battered and socially ostracized her zest for Life had not diminished. She wanted to live to tell the world what it means to survive a rape, face up to Life and continue to trust humankind. To be sure, it wasn’t as if the rape was the only challenge Jordan was up against. Long before the rape, her career had hit rock-bottom. She had last worked at a call center before starting one of her own. The investments she and her sister made in setting up their call center soon went up in smoke as they were cheated by one of their partners. Even as she was trying to piece together her career, the rape happened. And just when she was beginning to lose hope, help arrived in March 2013 in the form of an angel, Santasree Chaudhari, a philanthropist and entrepreneur. Chaudhari offered to support Jordan and her family financially and emotionally so that Jordan could carry on her fight for justice. In June 2013, Jordan made the momentous decision to reclaim (mark the word – she does not say ‘disclose’) her identity. Sick of being called the ‘Park Street Rape Victim’ by the media, who thrived in sensationalism than in just reportage, she stepped forward and identified herself. She says she was not willing, any longer, to be a blurred face on TV or in the newspapers. She was ready to come out and tell the world that she – daughter, sister, mother, woman – was willing to face a cold society__curious gossip-loving onlookers, lecherous men, an apathetic administration__and tell them that she may be single and a mother of two girls, but she was neither available nor was she willing to cower just because she had been violated. “I will fight and keep on fighting,” says Jordan. She told Shriya Mohan of Grist Media, when Mohan asked her what she wanted to do with her Life now, “I am already doing it”. Meaning that the rape had given her Life a purpose, a reason to live. Which is to become the face and voice of helpless rape victims the world over. And when Mohan again asked her what she loved doing the most, Jordan quipped: “Partying!”

Jordan’s story is one of rape. But each of us have our own stories. Life happens to us differently no doubt. But when things come crumbling, they often come collectively. A job loss, a health-challenge, a relationship-breakdown, a death – whatever, a few events happening at the same time plunge us into despair and depression. Fear and insecurity, often anger too, then consume us. This is when reference points such as Jordan become relevant and essential. Look at the lady’s spirit and feel inspired. Despite what has happened, she is willing to soldier on – and, above all, unabashedly concede that she loves partying!

Ask yourself these questions:

1.Is my problem graver than Jordan’s?2.What does my experience teach me?3.What can be my Life’s higher purpose from here on?4.What do I love doing the most, despite whatever’s happened or is happening to me?Irrespective of where you find yourself in Life just now – whatever you answer to Q # 4, just go do it! You will come alive!

Remember: in Life you will fall. You may often feel beaten. The more you bemoan your fate, the longer you will lay fallen. It is when you get up, face up to Life, that the true reason why things happened to you will become evident. And remember too that everything that happens to you is taking you in the direction of the Life that’s waiting for you!

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